The 7th International Symposium on Targeted Anticancer Therapies (TAT 2009) in Amsterdam, March 23-25, 2009, can be classified as one of the best meeting in this congress series on innovative anticancer agents with a cancer-specific molecular target. TAT 2009 attracted well over 400 delegates from over 40 different countries for a high-quality program with broad international participation. About two thirds of delegates were from Europe and one third from other parts of the world, underlining the increasingly global character of this series on new drug development in oncology.

The past meeting featured over 40 plenary lectures, including the NDDO Honorary Award Lecture 2009 by Dr. Napoleone Ferrara (Genentech Inc, South San Francisco, USA) whose pioneering work on Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) has laid the basis for the successful development of VEGF-targeting anti-angiogenic agents which have now entered daily clinical practice. Other Keynotes addressed the role of chemokines and inflammation in cancer (Dr. Frances Balkwill, Barts & The London School of Medicine & Dentistry, London, UK) and insulin-like growth factors as a promising drug target in cancer (Dr. Michael Pollak, McGill University, Montreal, Canada).


Napoleone Ferrara, M.D., (right), receives the NDDO Honorary Award 2009 Diploma from Chris Maats, M.D., (left), Chairman of the Board, NDDO Education Foundation.

It was apparent from the data presented at this meeting that early-phase clinical development of targeted anticancer agents is in full swing with many different targets being explored and hundreds of new agents being studied. Among the targets for which promising data were presented were insulin-like growth factor receptor inhibitors, drugs targeting cancer stem cells in various ways, inhibitors of DNA repair, and others. Another area of extensive research is looking at combinations of targeted agents with each other and combinations of targeted agents and conventional chemotherapy. Some of these studies have yielded untoward outcomes, such as the CAIRO study the final data of which were presented at TAT 2009.

With TAT 2009, this congress series returned to Amsterdam, the city where its concept matured. TAT 2009 was the first meeting in the series in Amsterdam that was held outside the VU University. According to delegates’ evaluations (35% responded), the current venue, the RAI Forum Centre, was at least equally well appreciated as the traditional site at the VU campus, which is no longer available for a three-day event like TAT.

TAT 2009 was the fifth meeting in this series organized in a partnership with the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the second with the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), in particular NCI’s Center for Cancer Research (CCR). In 2008, after NCI had joined as a partner, the first TAT meeting in the USA was held in Bethesda, MD. TAT 2010 will also be held in Bethesda (March 4-6, 2010). The venue for TAT 2011 will be a European city.

With ESMO and NCI as partners of the NDDO Education Foundation, the TAT congress has a solid organizational and scientific basis to continue as a high-level niche meeting in the field of oncology drug development. By virtue of the focus on early-phase clinical studies and associated translational research, each meeting in this series provides an exciting view of the future of systemic cancer therapy. By collaborating with two of the world’s leading oncology entities, ESMO and NCI/CCR, productive interactions between oncology drug development experts on both sides of the Atlantic are fostered. Thus, the TAT meeting series will continue to enhance the global dissemination of knowledge and clinical research expertise in the field of innovative cancer therapeutics to the benefit of cancer patients worldwide.